Comrade! (Part 25 - 2 more members for my veterans squad)

At the Ogre's Den LGS in Orangevale this Saturday, there's going to be a Stalingrad theme'd Bolt Action game event. Of course I'll be taking my Winter Soviets along and have been drawn to play the Volga Crossing table, attempting to get my reinforcements across the river and head in to back up the beleaguered brave defenders in the city proper.After choosing a list on EasyArmy, I realised I was two soldiers short for one of my squads, so after a wee search, found these minis that fit in perfectly with my Winter Onesie squad of Veterans. They are produced by Annie Norman's Bad Squiddo Games and turned out to be very straight forward to paint up.

They'll provide a 2nd LMG for my Fanatic (Stalingrad selector allows almost all your troop choices to add "Fanatic" to your units.) regs, making the squad rather nasty on the table at range AND in close combats.

Trooper on the right looks a bit surprised/googly, but I figured I'd leave her that way seeing as her helmet is down so low that on the table, no-one will see her features anyway.

Bad Squiddo is a minis company that specialises in ranges solely of female figures, but in more realistic/practical attire/armour. These WW2 ladies were originally part of a kickstarter prior to regular release and are sold as "Soviet Scouts", though they blend in perfectly with Warlord's Winter range and so will just be regular troops for my purposes

Next up the only other oustanding units from my army list, two Anti-tank Rifle teams. No Panzerfausts in Stalingrad, so my poor boys are going to have to try to tackle and German armour with these things. They'll also double up as psuedo-snipers too, which will be extra annoying, I'm betting. :)

Am pretty sure the bipods are incorrectly placed, but they'll do. I have yet to use Anti-tank guns in-game and always pass them up when choosing units for some reason.

Clever Hans (Part 3 - Lt. + Adjutant - Done!)

When i said I'd finally get started on my WW2 Winter Germans, I wasn't lying.

This is the force's Lieutenant and his adjutant/Platoon Sergeant pal all ready to lead the way against my array of Soviets. They are both very characterful sculpts with some nice facial expressions. After some patient base coating, both ended up being rather fun to detail. Think I got their kit painted in the correct colours too.

Per usual, these pics are pre-dulcote. 

Thought it'd be nice to show step-by-step pics. Well, kind of.

Base coat with a wash on his fleece lining. Warmest looking man in the force.

 I also got a start on those Giant Spiders too. Just simple washes.

Comrade! (Part 23 - Soviet Veterans Squad WIP) [And a wee distraction]

Not had much energy for painting of late, so these have sat in a "mostly done" state for a while, until this last weekend.

These are the first five of Warlord's Soviet Veteran metal sculpt squad. A nice set with some crisp interesting design elements. The only complaint about these minis is that there is no obvious loader mini for the LMG team. I sorted that out though by lazily sticking a plastic LMG magazine pouch onto one of the most likely of them to be the loader. (He's being painted up right now though)

Lighting's not great, but you get the idea.

The distraction was this cheeky impulse buy, a see-thru green plastic Reaper Bones mini called "The Summoning" (I believe). I just liked the sculpt and knew it'd be a fun exercise in Slapping on washes and harsh highlighting. I think I got the look I was aiming for. No idea what it'll be used as, but it looks cool in the display case so that's enough for me. :)

The sculpt is supposed to depict three nude ghostly girls/ladies all entwined in spirit smokes or fire, etc. 

Cheers!

Comrade! (Part 22 - M3 Half-track Done!)

Painting progress Comrades!

The M3 Half-track is done. Think I went a little overboard with the snow effects, but otherwise I’m happy enough with it. The model is a resin by Blitzkrieg Miniatures and required only a little clean up, mainly on the underside where there were some semi-ugly mold plug things, but aside from those just some slight resin flash. My only real criticism of this model is that it didn't come with any crew minis, but I just went and made a driver out of a plastic soviet tank commander with a headswap. Painting was all done with a brush and markings were unused decals from my T34/85. 

There was a picture of the back end too, but when I got to work to do the picture editing, I then realised it was out of focus. So, meh.

Action shot with some troops for fun and to show the scale of the Half-Track.

Here's the current standing of the Winter Soviets project in my display case:

What do I have planned for the gap at the front? Well I am happy you asked, because....

I also got these 5 painted up and since taking these pics have dressed their bases. Five to go and then  the squad of 10 will be done and I’ll start working on some Winter Germans which will be a nice change of pace. 

Switched up the Winter-white painting recipe a bit by applying a thinned layer of  brown wash to the creases. Liked the result so much I grabbed my squad of Scouts from the display case and spruced up their Winter Onesies with the same method and they look SO MUCH better for it too.